Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to the workforce plan, said:

“Labour welcomes any proposals that, as we have called for, genuinely
improve staff wellbeing but overall this report is thin gruel ducking
the big challenges of how to solve an escalating staffing crisis because
Tory ministers have refused to back up the plan with the cash that is
so desperately needed.

“As Dido Harding’s report hints at, scrapping the bursary, cuts to
career development budgets, pay restraint and ongoing austerity means
the NHS is left struggling with 100,000 staff shortages including 40,000
nurses and 10,000 doctors. The consequence is patient safety at risk
and poorer standards of care.

“Expected recommendations to recruit 5,000 nurses a year internationally have mysteriously vanished from the final draft.

“Without immediate determined action, backed up by investment, the NHS workforce crisis will only get worse.

“Ministers should have today announced they were restoring the
bursary, reversing cuts to training budgets, and legislating for safe
staffing on wards. Instead, we have a government in meltdown and a
Health Secretary jockeying for a prominent role in the next Tory
Cabinet. Only Labour will properly deal with the workforce problems our
NHS face.”

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, speaking ahead of meetings with the Irish President and Prime Minister and other political leaders in Dublin, said:

“Throughout this summer, our politics will be paralysed and our
country’s future put on hold while the Conservatives are locked in
internal conflict over their leadership. Jobs and investment will be put
at risk in Leave and Remain areas alike.

“The Tory leadership contest will most likely end with a small number
of wildly unrepresentative rightwing Conservative activists foisting a
No Deal zealot on the country.

“The next Tory leader will be yet another unelected Prime Minister,
without the support of the public and with no mandate for whatever form
of Brexit he or she supports.

“Since the 2016 referendum, Labour has backed an alternative plan for
Brexit that would work for the whole country, protecting jobs and
living standards. Brexit has not happened because of the sheer
incompetence and infighting of the Conservative Party.

“Labour will work with anyone across party boundaries and do whatever
is necessary to stop a disastrous No Deal outcome, which would open the
way for a frenzy of deregulation and a race to the bottom in jobs,
rights and protections.

“But faced with the threat of No Deal and a Prime Minister with no
mandate, the only way out of the Brexit crisis ripping our country apart
is now to go back to the people. Let the people decide the country’s
future, either in a general election or through a public vote on any
deal agreed by parliament.

“For Labour any outcome has to work for our whole country, not just one side of this deliberately inflamed divide.”

Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald,commenting on the call by Metro Mayors Steve Rotherham and Andy Burnham for the Northern Rail franchise to be terminated said:

“Labour Metro Mayors Steve Rotherham and Andy Burnham are absolutely
right to call for the termination of the Northern Rail franchise which
was awarded by the last Conservative government. The contract has been a
failure in every possible sense with delayed and cancelled trains, new
services not being delivered and the dreaded Pacer trains still in
operation.

“Northern Rail passengers deserve better than this and they also deserve long overdue investment in the Northern Rail network.

“A Labour government will end the failed franchising system and unite
the whole railway under a single publicly owned company. We will
support and empower Transport for the North to build a railway fit for
purpose and fit for the 21^st century.

“Chris Grayling can’t wait for another review. He needs to act immediately and bring this failed franchise to an end.”

Shami Chakrabarti, Labour’s Shadow Attorney General,
commenting on reports that the Met will push for the prosecution of
more than 1,100 people arrested during last month’s Extinction Rebellion
protests, said:

“The Deputy Assistant Commissioner would be wise to remember his
constitutional role, which is not that of prosecutor, judge or
commentator. The police performs a vital role in preserving the law and
keeping the peace, which includes safeguarding the rights of peaceful
protesters.

“The next Labour Government will review the statute book to ensure that the right to peaceful protest is robustly protected.”

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, responding to Theresa May’s resignation announcement, said:

“The Prime Minister is right to have resigned. She has now accepted
what the country has known for months: she cannot govern, and nor can
her divided and disintegrating party.

“The burning injustices she promised to tackle three years ago are even starker today.

“The Conservative Party has utterly failed the country over Brexit
and is unable to improve people’s lives or deal with their most pressing
needs.

“Parliament is deadlocked and the Conservatives offer no solutions to the other major challenges facing our country.

“The last thing the country needs is weeks of more Conservative infighting followed by yet another unelected Prime Minister.

“Whoever becomes the new Conservative Leader must let the people
decide our country’s future, through an immediate General Election.”